My Official Green Bay Packer Blog

If NFL franchise markets were boobs, Green Bay would have trouble filling out an A cup.  And she’d be standing in a roomful of Jugs Magazine centerfolds.  Big, full, bouncy, exciting…

Where was I?  Right.  Market size.

Green Bay is small.  Roughly a quarter million in population.  Probably the same number of people as inhabit the John Hancock building in Chicago on a weekday.  But the Green Bay Packers organization?  If NFL franchises were men, the Packers would be a player.  A ladies’ man.  Someone that knows his way around the female anatomy.

The Packers know how to squeeze their market.  They can get every last drop out of those A cups.  I told someone in another big football market recently about how the Packers sell worthless pieces of paper they call “stock” in the team, $750 apiece of paper, to generate revenue.  When he stopped laughing, I told him about how the Packers sold 4″ x 4″ chunks of frozen turf from Lambeau one year, again to finance their operations.  He lost consciousness.

So when I heard about the Packers having a day for kids at the Atrium, I was sure it was going to cost a fortune.  $25 a kid, I bet.  Nope.  It was free.

So we loaded up the truck and we drove to Green Bay.  Lambeau.  Hallowed fields.  Football stars.

As we cruised up highway 41 I said to my wife - “I bet they’ll charge us $20 for parking.  I mean, this is the Packers.  Nothing’s free once you’re inside the yellow gates at 1265 Lombardi Ave.”  I could see the air leave the lungs of wife, ever the skilled bargain hunter, as she considered how this apparent freebie might quickly turn into something very expensive.

We got to the gates.  Nobody was tending the ticket booths.  Drive right in.  We parked, unloaded the reasons for our grey hair, then walked to the Atrium’s front doors.  We were greeted by friendly people handing out free NFL Play60 headbands to every kid that walked through the door.

And there were inflatables.  For those without kids, those are the air-filled bouncy things.  Not your last-ditch Friday night date.  And to top it off, there was a group of jumping gymnasts, showing off their amazing abilities to soar and do back flips while flying ten feet in the air.

The kids loved it.  The parents loved it.  And it was all free.

Thanks, Packers.

Well, folks.  Here we are.  The off season.

Brett Favre has said he thinks there’s no way he’ll come back for another season.  Again. And he’s scheduled to appear this week in prime time on the new, old (and entirely marginal) Tonight Show with Jay Leno. And I’m sure there will be questions about Favre’s status.  Again. And I’m sure Favre will dust off his “golly, anything can happen” schtick.  Again.  He’ll speak in stammering partial sentences, committing to nothing, leaving every door to his return very nearly closed.  Very nearly.  But not quite. Also scheduled for this week?  Me holding a garbage can to catch my vomit when I watch Brett in his well-rehearsed, oft-performed dance of enticement of football fans.  Only this time, the barf that leaves my mouth will be accompanied by uproarious laughter, because this time I’ll know it’ll be our neighbors to the west who are holding their breath, biting their nails and throwing their Nerf footballs at their LCD screens as they listen to Favre trying his best to hide his feelings of self-importance.

Suck it, Vikings fans.  This was all part of the bargain you made when Charlie Daniels and his fiddle packed up and left Georgia to visit the Twin Cities.

During the football season my email inbox gets clogged with crap. Useless garbage, like a beer company telling me their spokesmodel will be in town, so maybe I blog about it? Oh, I blogged about it. Or when Jay Leno was launching his new show and there was a street team at Lambeau that night to promote the live teleconference thing at halftime. Right. Not so much.

So when I got email about Al Harris and his rehab, and how there’s video of it, I thought “Meh. Nobody wants to watch me popping my morning pills, popping the vertebrae in my back, then jogging on the treadmill.

But in a moment of weakness, I clicked and watched. The whole thing.

Al’s working hard to come back. And now I’m kinda drawn in.

Next week? Watch YouTube to see me try to choose between purple and grey underwear! (hint: the chicks love the purple. gets ‘em moist.)

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